(Newser)
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China is mocking us. At this year’s World Economic Forum, they aired a cartoon in which a runner representing America fell over panting, while others teased, “He ate too many hamburgers.” And given China’s incredible growth, they have room to tease, says Thomas Friedman in today’s New York Times. But just when you think he’s about to go into one of his patented—and oft-criticized—diatribes on Chinese superiority, Friedman swerves. “I know, I know,” he writes. “With enough cheap currency, labor and capital—and authoritarianism—you can build anything.”

Friedman admits to "overidealizing China too much." But he adds, “I am not praising China because I want to emulate their system. I am praising it because I am worried about my system.” America is surely capable of keeping pace with China, of pulling together and accomplishing great things. “But we’re not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful.”

The Chinese may be laughing at themselves in 20 years, as the allure of free market greed invades and corrupts further an already corrupted sovereignty

Berzelius

Sep 22, 2010 5:21 PM CDT

Trying to keep up with China is a preposturous idea. China has much more to grow and will always grow gdp at a rate greater than ours. We are a fully developed nation while they are still in the growth stage with much more growing to do. Eventually ecocomies have to stop worrying about growing and start developing/improving. Measuring economies by growth of gdp is a greedy principle and can only be a useful standard ignoring externalities. The world is finite but constant gdp growth needs it to be infinite.